Modern Bromance
by NullNoMore
Summary: A series of one-shots, set mostly on Doug's couch. All part of an exploration of the weird BrOTP developing between him and Alexa. Warning: Swears, beer, fluff or sorrow (occasionally you get both). Post game. All good things belong to MONOLITH SOFT.
1. Modern Bromance

**A/N: Alexa and Doug enjoy an evening at home, post game (but no huge spoilers). Swears & beer & something that is not flirting, not even close. Really.**

 **All the good stuff belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT, although I came up with the film title.**

* * *

Isn't it bromantic?

Doug and Alexa were watching a brilliant smash-em-up skell movie, "San Andreas Mechs III". Lots of chases and shootouts. Doug just enjoyed the dumb action, while Alexa could not control a string of hoots and criticisms about the wrongness of every skell and every scene. Luckily the sound consisted mostly of explosions, screeches, and driving tinny rap music, because if there had been any exposition more involved than "We need to go now!" and "He'll pay for that!", Doug would never have heard it for her chatter.

Best way to spend an evening if they couldn't be doing their real favorite things. With no juicy or even bone dry missions going, Doug was a little at a loss. Hopefully things would pick up soon. He didn't feel like hanging out at Repenta one more night, but he couldn't quite manage sitting in his quarters either. He would just end up pacing. This left the hangar area, but dammit, nothing needed cleaning or repairing. He'd checked. So it was one more endless night there, sipping repulsive coffee and not quite making eye contact with his team.

Meanwhile, Alexa had finished a long series of detailed tests on, of all things, improved knife melee accuracy. Necessary, appreciated, but so not skells it made her almost weep. She could only pray that her assignment tomorrow would be better. Home wasn't any bed of roses either. She'd read all her skell mags and manuals so many times, she could only flip through them half-heartedly. Her roomies were watching a kissy kissy movie, sighing over dudes who wore capes and rode horses. HORSES! They'd kicked her out after she'd made gagging noises. Finally, she'd headed to the hangar area, maybe to bug Lila, maybe to drool over skells (maybe!), and found Doug looking gloomy. They'd decided that misery loved company, and that a really trashy racing movie was about the only solution.

Which is why they were enjoying the wonders of Doug's tiny regulation couch, squished elbow to elbow, drinking a little beer, eating a lot of popcorn, and generally smoothing out the wrinkles in their brains with this fine piece of cinema. Alexa kept grabbing Doug's arm to alert him to a particularly awful misrepresentation of the greatness of skells, because, oh yes, she'd seen this one before. She could recite the dialogue for long patches. Doug could recite the dialogue too, although he'd never seen this particular movie before. Anyone with half an imagination could figure out that when the hero stomped onto the battlefield, then transformed into a vehicle, the only possible line could be, "Let's roll." Occasionally, he'd make a snarky remark about tactics, and Alexa would hoot about that too.

Just before the first big race competition scene, where Doug already was certain the naive but plucky skell pilot would sacrifice the lead to let the team leader triumph, Alexa reached over Doug to adjust the lighting on the switches next to his ear. A less lazy person would have hopped off the couch, but she just turned, half straddled him, and reached up and behind his head to fiddle with the levels.

"Alexa!" The complaint came from the area of her chest.

"What?" She was still punching at the light switch, trying different options. "There's some wicked glare, and I can't stand it."

"Excuse me, but ever hear of personal space?" Doug sounded muffled and maybe just a little terrified.

She sat back on her heels, squarely on his lap now, and looked down on him. "I'm exactly as close as before. Just blocking the view a little. Lean to the side if you have to."

Doug closed his eyes tight, and took a deep breath. "This is really distracting and a little disturbing."

"Come on," she chided him. Her grin was derisive. "Don't tell me you are interested in this part. They're just going to yabber on about the honor of their team for 3 minutes. Dullsville."

"Jesus, Alexa, do I really have to explain this? I am not used to somebody jumping on me and smothering me with their tits. You like skells. I like girls. Get off my lap."

"What?" If he'd hoped to shock her into moving, it didn't quite work. Shocked, yes, and starting to giggle, but she was still sitting there, unbelieving. "You're kidding me."

"Alexa, I'm going to count to three…" His eyes were still closed, and he had his jaw clenched.

She really did laugh then, and shifted back to sit beside him. She gave his hand a consoling pat. "Really? God, what will you think of next? Better now?"

Doug took in a deep breath and opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. He rolled his shoulders, trying to relax them. "Yeah, so usually it doesn't come into play, but there are limits on even the weirdest friendship."

She laughed harder. "You're the weird one."

Finally he could look at her again. He smiled a rueful smile. "Really? Whose nickname is Skellhead?"

"Mine, thank you very much. What's weird about that?"

"Sad thing is, it used to sound much weirder to me. Maybe I'm getting numb to it all."

She shrugged and turned back to the screen. "Whatever. Oh wait, watch this part."

They watched that part. Alexa went on a long rant on how there was no way the maneuver, drifting to the side to push the opponent's skell into the gorge, would have worked without also crashing the hero. He wouldn't have just fallen behind. He would have caught on fire. Doug congratulated himself silently on spotting obvious plot developments as the team leader indeed used the opportunity to race to the front of the pack.

The movie continued, through several more shoot outs and crashes and a final all-country rally that was so poorly shot that even Alexa was having trouble telling which team was making which curve.

As Doug picked up the beer bottles, and Alexa helped corral the errant popcorn pieces, she turned and asked him. "Did it really bug you?" She didn't have to explain what.

"Naw, just, don't do it again."

"Usually you ignore that I'm a woman. None of that stupid stuff. That's cool of you."

"I don't ignore it, I just don't let it get involved that way. Gotta do that when you work with a team, for a lot of different things." He'd ducked down to check his mini fridge, then popped back up with two last cold ones. "Who's a woman, or a dude, or married, or a drinker. If it's an issue, you pay attention, otherwise, you don't." He handed her a bottle.

"Still, it's cool. Thanks."

"It's easy with you."

"Huh, like I'm not a woman?" She didn't sound hurt, just curious. Well, maybe a little worried too.

"Nope. If I didn't remember it, my current team would remind me. Just a note, keep away from them, they are 100% dogs. Man did I draw a bunch of losers this time." He shook his head, then clinked bottle necks with her. "It's just, I like you, so it's easy."

"Until I use you as my own personal step stool."

"You got the picture. My reptilian brain goes: Me Doug, you girl, and I need to start counting to 1000."

Alexa laughed cheerfully, and Doug smiled back at her. "Well, I won't do that again," Alexa promised. "Okay?"

"I'd appreciate it."

"We're still cool for tango, though?" It made sense to be a little worried, because when they hit the dance floor, there was a whole lot of choreographed grabbing and pivoting going on.

"Tango is a whole 'nother world, Alexa, its own thing. No other thoughts need apply."

"Great! Because I was thinking about next week's talent competition…"

They bounced ideas about moves back and forth, and even discussed costumes. Yes, they'd sunk that deep that Alexa was almost ready to try a skirt to enhance the visuals. Until Doug pointed out that their winnings were better when they arrived at an event in their most casual of street clothes. Something about seeing the two of them in hoodies and jeans made even the most cautious Pathfinder bet big against this couple doing anything more interesting than the chicken dance. Even people that had seen them once or twice seemed to lose all sense, sure that last time had been a fluke, that they'd misremembered those quick yet fluid movements, those fiery mobile embraces. Mufti it was then.

Alexa gave a great yawn, not her first but surpassing all others in ferocity. "I gotta get home. This week has been twice as long as normal because it was so BORING!" She stood up and wobbled a bit from tiredness.

"You can hop into my bed."

"Doug!"

"Shut up, stupid. I'll ride the couch. I was going to stay up and read anyway."

She smiled mildly, already asleep on her feet. "Okie dokie. Thanks, Dougie."

"No problems. Yell if you need anything."

And if any of their various roomies or teammates made rude remarks the next morning, Alexa just wrinkled her nose, while for his part, Doug merely wondered out loud, his usually mild voice holding the slightest touch of menace, if somebody had a problem with something.

* * *

 **A/N: Eldest Child swears there will never, ever be anything between these two darlings, and I tend not to argue with experts. However ... I say, there could come a day when beer, boredom, and an overly enthusiastic demonstration of new skell harnesses and throttle placement will lead to something very interesting. Or not, I'm okay with that too. If your read "Picnic", you will see (obliquely) what dogs Doug's team really are (don't worry, Alexa's abuela raised no fools).**


	2. Stay

**Stay.**

 **A/N: Dougie did good against a mess of hostiles. Why does he feel so very bad? And can la Outfitter loca and a deep dish pizza help in any way?**

 **Post game, weak spoilers & swears, deeper sorrow & violence. All the deep world of Mira, good and bad, belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT, bless them all. And a shout out to the localization team, 8-4, wow, you did good.**

* * *

He could have stayed that way all night. Warm, safe, mindless. No matter how tired he was, this felt so good, so relaxing. He leaned his head against the tiles, letting the shower rain down on him, past his shoulders. Hell, he could probably manage a nap standing up.

But some things stayed the same. Whether you were in Old Los Angeles or New Los Angeles, you faced a water shortage. Two years of space travel changed nothing, just moved it a few light years to the left. Biahno Purification Plant wasn't coming up to scratch, or rather, they were gaining allies, thirsty allies, "at a rate that was outpacing production improvements," to quote that dark haired, uptight chick from the plant. Great for NLA's continued safety, but it meant that 5 minute showers were still a thing.

Doug sighed and shut off the taps. But he still didn't step out, didn't even move his forehead from the wall. He stood there, letting the water drip off his chin, his elbows, tickle its way down his ribs. He waited to feel a chill, a blessed cool feeling creeping up his back, but that was another thing that stayed the same. Cheap apartments had lousy bathrooms with no ventilation. Or heat. So he was cold when it was cold, and stifled when it was warm. And he still could have stayed put for who knows how long.

Except there was a sound outside, rattling in his front room. He ran through the list of people with keys: Lin? But it was too quiet, not chatty, because she tended to show up in stereo with Tatsu. Elma? Naw, she'd leave him be, never one to drop by without asking. She respected his castle of an off-barracks apartment. And, there was no one else. No one. Not anymore. He sighed.

Except, of course, one last person. One guess, and it better rhyme with Skellexa.

He opened the bathroom door a crack. "Who's there?"

"Ma-non mafia. We got pizza."

Dammit, he was too tired for pizza. Too tired to smile, but there he was, smiling. "Okay, but I'm coming out, so give me a moment."

"I'll cover my eyes."

He joined her shortly, track pants and t-shirt and bare feet. She'd gotten all too comfortable herself, shoes off, feet on his coffee table, pizza already violated. His favorite, deep dish and gooey. A skell video was running on his tv, mercifully on mute. He dropped next to her, still drying his stubble of hair.

"I heard it was bad."

"Who told you?"

"Mara swung by to say hey and gave me a heads up."

"How'd he know?"

"No idea. So, bad?"

"Yeah." He didn't want to go into it. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

"Have some pizza, Doug. It isn't getting any warmer."

"Alexa, I am just too tired to eat. Too tired for anything. Go home."

"Nope. I'm here for the duration. I'll tuck you in and read you a bedtime story. Goldiskell and the Three Grexes." Her voice dropped to a fake whisper. "It doesn't end so well for the grexes."

"Alexa…"

"Or I could tell you about Rumplestilzharrier, but it's not as good."

"That makes no sense."

She wriggled closer to him, and patted his hand. "Or we can watch this hideous video, eat some pizza obtained by a fabulous Outfitter, and I split after an hour or so."

"I'm just so tired."

She sat quietly next to him. She hadn't moved her hand from his. It was almost like she was holding his hand, but not really. He had to admit, it felt nice, having a friend beside him, doing nothing but just being there. Reminded him of those first months on the Whale, except he'd been the one sitting, doing nothing, just being a witness to someone else's misery.

What had he wished back then? That Lao would tell him something, anything, somehow share what was killing him. Doug knew already, but he wanted to talk about it too, just a little, just a lot. And then that had shut down, even the little they had. Gahhhh, why was he remembering it now?

Because it was goddammed Pathfinders, and he'd failed them.

And before he could start remembering any other thing, it came pouring out. "We got a call. A team in Sylvalum, in a panic, but we were deep into one nasty Xe-dom. The thing smacked several groups this week already, really aggressive. Extra strong too, I can only hope somebody learns something from the scrap we left behind. Anyway, we'd finally got one appendage down and an edge on the thing. I'm not sure we could even have disengaged safely, because, honestly, Alexa, we weren't doing so well up until then.

"So we got this call, direct, a group of Pathfinders repairing a probe site, scared of a shadow or something. I ignored it, we'd get to it right away, just let us get this thing done first.

"And that's just what happened. We got a little lucky, we wrapped it up faster than I expected…"

"You get a lot of luck, Doug. Maybe it's something else," Alexa said softly.

"Yeah, sometimes we can be smooth, and we'd done our homework, not that it was a huge help. So, right, we got lucky, tyrant down, high fives all around, booyah!, and I call back the Pathfinders. Except no one was picking up." He sighed deeply. Ah, god, he hated it. "They'd been caught by Marnuck."

"Crap."

"It gets weird, Alexa. Not just bad. Well, bad and weird. They were captured by them, not killed."

Alexa hissed in a breath. She got it. Marnuck, smaller than Prone by a hand, and meaner by a bucket. They killed enemies, all of them. A religious rite, bringing them one step closer to eternity or something. If they didn't, something was just wrong.

Doug went on, eyes still closed tight, trying to unsee what he'd seen. "But one of them, one of the BLADEs, set her comm device to send a tracking signal. Smart kid. We followed, and fast, and caught up to them.

"They were in a temporary camp, a small one, not quite in a cave but tucked under one of those white shelves Sylvalum has. I was worried it was a trap, but screw that, we went in and did our thing, and after an oversized flying bulldozer of a Xe-dom, it was kind of gratifyingly juicy. Sick, right? But it felt so really simple. Find 'em, fix 'em, finish 'em."

He gave his head a few gentle bangs against the back of his couch. "Three of the team were okay, but one of them, ugh." He rolled his head back and forth for a second. "And there was a Milsaadi."

"We do so love them," Alexa put in, her voice acid.

He wasn't in control of the story anymore, not that he was getting loud, but he felt his words start to skitter out on their own. "That wasn't fun, but it was wrong, Alexa. They don't go together, Milsaadi and any other damn thing. And they don't go alone. But it was there, just the one, and he didn't have a weapon, not at first. It was, he was, I don't know, taking notes or something."

"What the..."

"If I had to guess, a scientist, maybe? Somebody trying to figure something out? And making tests on us. Because it was a - experiment, like somebody's freshman bio class, dissection and frogs and, oh god, Alexa, I can't tell you much more. God, Alexa, I just don't know. What comes out of all this? What comes next?"

She leaned against him. After a moment, she asked quietly, "And the BLADE, the one that …?"

"Still alive, can you believe it? All of them. No thanks to us. All four would have been dead long ago if they weren't being used for something else. He's in the mim repair center, but I don't know if they'll ever let him out. Solan looked like he was gonna faint when we hauled the poor guy in. We'd wrapped him in plastic sheeting, kinda to keep everything together, but we're gonna need to hose down the skell that carried him. Then set it on fire, hose it down again, take an axe to it…"

"Easy, easy. So you got them all home safe?"

"Sort of."

"You got them home. And you stopped that Marnuck team. Good." She sounded firm. "And the Milsaadi weirdo. Lovely, well ain't that just what we need. Curious Milsaadi. I'd kill to find out what was going on in his head."

"We captured it."

"What?! Doug, that's awesome!"

"Nguyn insisted. He's the smart one on the team, sometimes. I would have shot it. Kinda wish I did. I can still hear it hissing behind me, all the way back. Saying that the Ganglion wasn't over, that we'd be lucky to be slaves to the Milsaadi but that we'd never get the chance."

"Aw, Doug." And then neither of them said anything for a while. After a few minutes, Alexa turned on the sound of the skellploitation film, and eventually Doug opened his eyes to watch the explosions and screeches and follow her excited running commentary. And Alexa never let go of his hand.

When the video was over, and the pizza put away (still untouched by Doug), Alexa didn't go home. Because when she offered to stay, he couldn't bear to say no. Even if it meant a crick in his neck from another night on the couch. Friends don't get embarrassed when they really could use someone to stay with them.

* * *

 **A/N: I got nothing. I love this pair something fierce. And Lao can eat dirt (unless you need him for some good fanfic/art, then I'm cool). More coming next week.**


	3. Tyrants and Kisses

**Tyrants and Kisses**

 **A/N: Dougie has done good against a tyrant, with totally different results than last time. After No-Neck, this dare is nothing by comparison. Standard kissing-centric bit of fluff.**

 **Post game but no big spoilers past Ch.8, swears, and kissing. Lots of it.**

 **All the wonderful and well-balanced stuff belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT. Repenta's owner's name drawn from the sweetest fluff by ChronoBlader (gah, their Gwin is so cute. Go! Read it right now!** **New Love for the Underdog! Tell me how to paste a link and I will do it** **). Lila, Gino, Twyleth and Ricky-Bobby lead rich lives but only inside my head.**

* * *

They had done it. They had DONE IT! Oh, man, this feeling was incredible, and to hell with the bet. He could still see the darkening sky, the glow of Sylvalum in the distance, as that beast, that monster, had reared back one last time before sinking definitively into the sand. He'd gotten out of his skell, to smell the wind off the ocean, to feel the heat lifting away from the ground, the machine, from him. The beach was torn to bits from the battle. His team had stumbled over the wasteland to join him and they had howled and slapped each other, lifting one another off the ground. Ray and Janine had gotten into a brief wrestling match, something about getting as much sand as possible into each other's hair. He'd just stood there, blinking and grinning. They'd done it.

How long had it taken to bring that thing down? His crew had guessed two hours, and he wasn't going to argue. Certainly, they'd started when the sun was up, and they'd ended as stars began raining down from the sky and the moons were all the light they needed to clean up the last scraps of fight. Even to the end, they had given their all, because this opponent was something never to be underestimated, never to be forgotten.

All the way home, flying toward the sweetest sight known to man, a tower lit green and frosty and safe, they'd joked about what you can do in two hours. Some crude suggestions, sure, but mostly silly ones. How much beer, how much pizza? How much pizza for a Ma-non (frightening guesses, and not too far from right)? How much bubble gum? Could you knit anything worth speaking of (Ray had hobbies, so sue him)? Could you kiss everyone at the Repenta?

And that started the bet. Because he offered to kiss anyone and everyone his team could name and find, as soon as they hit New LA. For 120 minutes.

"Eleonora," shouted Ray. And it began, even as they checked in to deliver the mission report to the Blonde Menace herself.

"Pardon me, Eleonora," said Doug, and he planted a solid kiss on her cheek.

"Well, mercy, and thank you, sweetie," she replied, momentarily flustered. "Good job. On the tyrant. Now run along."

"Cheek kisses? Weak, Doug! So weak! You're worn out, man. We need to get you some vitamins or an energy drink or something," heckled Nguyn.

"He can do better," Janine defended him. He smiled at her in gratitude, until she smirked and pointed to the scarred and terrifying drill instructor standing on the other side of the mission board. "Wolf."

And it just got crazier from there. Because he'd done it, on the lips, and quickly too, jumping back out of the range of the man's swinging punch. "Solon." Mush. "Kirsty." Thank you, Ray, for Kirsty and for that cute doctor too.

All in all, Ray was the most enthusiastic. "That one, the Nopon!"

"Nope. I got rules."

"No xenos? That's racist."

"Drop dead. Anything, er, anyone is fine by me, but if you don't know a person's name, I don't have to kiss them." Doug looked smug, but only for a moment.

Nguyn went over to the Nopon. "Excuse me, ma'am, but my friend wants to know your name," he asked politely.

And shortly thereafter he was bending low and kissing Miss Mamara, visiting from Dorian Caravan. She'd been surprisingly pleased by this. "BLADEs very friendly in capitol. Mamara will recommend it."

More craziness. "Gwin!"

"Yo, buddy. Heads up!" And done. Gwin looked stunned. Luckily for him, Irina was nowhere in sight. First, she'd kill him for messing with her puppy, then she'd kill him because he guessed his team would shout her name next.

They'd reached the crossroads. The barracks door slid open, and he didn't even have to guess what came next. Well, there was a question of what came first. Or not. It came in unison, each team member shouting a different name.

Tatsu was first, get the weirdest over with and move on. "Meh meh." The colonel was next, and he'd tried very hard not to think, tried not to decide if this was fun or special or, er, yeah, so that went okay. She'd looked wryly from him to his team, raising one eyebrow over her spectral blue eyes. He'd left them to explain, and turned to Lin.

"Come here, sweetie." He grabbed her up, swung her around a dozen times, peppering the side of her cheek as she squealed and protested that she wasn't some kid. She wouldn't be, not for long once the organic redemption happened, but for now he could still do this, be her biggest and silliest fan.

"Put me down!" When he did, she was smiling and laughing. "You've finally lost it, Doug. What's going on?"

But his team was already moving down the alley, and he could hear their shouts. "Gotta go. Important Harrier mission. I'll tell you later. Just, we did it, got the no-neck down." He shot off after his team.

They'd named everyone they knew, and some they didn't. (Nguyn was getting very polished with his introductions. "Excuse me,…") BLADE, Ma-non, Nopon. "L!" That was weird, but only because he hadn't ever kissed somebody taller than he was. Interesting. The dude smelled like Noctilum. L seemed pleased, fluttering his hands about.

Then the Commander wandered past, arguing with a crowd from the Arms Manufacturers. By the looks of it, it was some plan involving BLADE and Six Stars. Doug grabbed Ray and slapped a hand over his mouth. Janine and Nguyn looked at each other, ducking from his glare. Please, no …

"H.B." said Janine quickly.

Well, okay, he owed her a beer and a box of chocolates for that nice save, because he understood they couldn't just let a challenge like that wander past unnoticed. He yanked the Commander's newly acquired shadow away from the group, planted a kiss on him and shoved him back, his clipboard hardly ruffled. "Move," he ordered his team, and thank god even Ray didn't argue. Because he'd do it, they knew he would, but the fallout would not be pretty.

Word had gotten out. Interesting to see who ducked away, who stepped into their path, who was still clueless. He was liking it better and better, because fun as it was to shock someone he knew and liked (Gwin or Kirsty), more fun even to shock someone who could use the scare (H.B.), he didn't feel 100% comfortable involving innocent strangers. But dammit, they'd done it, and he still had a lot of whatever mimeosomes use instead of adrenaline racing around his body. He needed just a little more danger to come off that high.

"Sharon."

Oh shit, not that kind of danger. Violet eyed, smile like a knife, arms crossed. "Well? Am I going to be surprised? Or, more likely, disappointed?"

Doug blinked for one second, long enough for his team to start readying their condemnations and encouragements, then dropped dramatically to one knee. He grabbed the Murdress' right hand (the one closest to her knife), held it tenderly but firmly, and did his best to imitate an antique movie star swashbuckler. "M'lady," he declared, and kissed the spot just past her wrist. He'd have kissed her palm, but her hand was in a tight fist. The better to give you a concussion, my dear, he suspected. Then a quick scramble up and back, quicker even than when tackling Wolf. Wolf aimed to hurt, not to kill.

"Pathetic," snapped Murdress, but they were already hustling towards the elevator. Even Harriers knew that not every tyrant needed to be engaged during a mission.

Down through the hangar complex, his crew couldn't yell names fast enough to suit them. Lila's station was hit, being the first in sight (location location location). Lila looked no happier or more sour afterwards, so he guessed that was okay. Luckily Gino was off for the day, he had a mean streak. "Twyleth!" shouted Nguyn. That was the Ma-non tech, Doug guessed.

And here came the first real problem. Astonishing it had taken this long. Because as he trotted toward the tiny alien, all eyes and floppy ears and not looking completely sure what was about to happen, a large and angry figure stepped in the way. Ricky-Bobby, Lila's other human employee, usually so mild and sweet, 180cm of distractible bunny with freckles and the ability to bench press Prone. He was not looking calm about this at all. "You shouldn't make fun of Twyleth," he said, then paused. It wasn't clear if he knew what to do next, but Doug didn't want to find out if he could actually put 2 and 2 together and come up with a punch.

"No worries," said Doug. "You can pass it on for me." And he kissed Ricky-Bobby.

"Okay." Ricky-Bobby nodded and smiled. Around their ankles, the Ma-non tech was bouncing like a Nopon. As his team turned to shift deeper into the hangar, Doug heard her warbling. "Oh Ricky-Bobby, you are just the the the bravest, you know? Always protecting me from danger, right? So, um, were you going to to to give me something?"

By the time they'd left the hangar, they were clearly behind schedule. Well, Doug hadn't complained. To begin with, Ada had been very glad to see them approach, and Doug had been very happy to see her. That had been good. Couldn't blame all of the delay on her, but a little. Also, she'd whispered to call her. Nice. Then, he'd made most of the hangar's tent city laugh, one way or another, even if he'd also had to kiss most of them as well. His team had even given him a few moments for a swig of coffee, before leaping down and over the platform (idiots!) and tearing off towards the Repenta. Apparently, they had a date with destiny at that establishment.

Nothing happened much through the Commercial District, although he had hinted that they could stop here or there (usually where he knew a nice looking waitress was on duty). Nope, look neither to the left nor right, but straight on they headed. Well, if it meant skipping Bozé, he'd be okay with it. Wolf, Sharon, he didn't think his luck would hold a third time.

"Behold the promised land," announced Ray, when the diner hove into sight. "Aaaand…"

"Frye!" shouted Janine, tripping at his heels.

"What?!" the white-blond Interceptor shouted back.

"You're it," said Doug, and kissed Frye. And was kissed right back, with a firmness and enthusiasm that he hadn't reckoned on. He had to peel Frye off of him. "What the hell?"

"I was warned. Been practicing." Frye grinned wickedly. "Right, kids?" he asked his fellow drinkers. They all agreed, with more or less sheepish looks. "Wanna go another round?"

"Ugh, what's your mouthwash? Road kill?"

"If I'd known you'd be fussy, I'd have switched to peppermint schnapps." Frye laughed loudly. "I can fix that."

"Thanks, no. One to a customer." Meanwhile, his team was already pushing their way into the diner, all in a bunch, not willing to be the last to scope out targets for the remaining minutes. The doorway wasn't quite made to simultaneously handle three overeager BLADEs but they did their best.

Only to be stopped, just past the doorstep, by the bar owner. Normally so welcoming, Arya had her hands on her hips and a no-nonsense expression on her slender face. Doug actually felt a chill.

"I've been hearing about this nonsense you've been pulling all over town."

Ray and Janine started to explain about the bet and the tyrant and all. Not in unison, more in competition. Nguyn kept trying to inch past, and Arya kept smacking him back towards the door with a bar towel. Doug wisely stayed silent. When the travesty of an explanation was over, Arya still wasn't smiling.

"No. I will not have people harassed this way. Knock it off."

"What if we get their permission?" asked Ray. When Arya paused, clearly on the verge of repeating her judgement against their bet, Ray hurried on. "You don't mind a little kissing in your place, right? Because last Friday there was a lot of kissing, just before closing time, and…"

Janine joined in. "Exactly. Between two consenting adults, it's not a big deal. Right, Arya? If I kissed someone I knew right now, you wouldn't mind, right? Like, er, Ray…" Janine stopped dead in mid-sentence.

"Do it, do it!" whispered Nguyn. Doug pinched him to shut him up.

"… because we're friends, so it's okay," continued Ray in a sort of strangled voice. Both of them were blushing mightily. Great, Doug thought, now he would have to watch those two to make sure they didn't get distracted during missions, and also build in extra time for whatever else was going on.

"That's not what I heard was happening. You do not pull my customers into your weird little games." Arya was not bending on this point.

"But if they were friends, and they did give permission…" Nguyn went on.

"… and if we did buy a round of drinks as well…" offered Doug.

The owner stared at the foursome, so pathetically eager not to lose, so willing to do anything she demanded, just so they could still STILL finish this bet. Ray and Janine were frozen stiff, doing their best to both look at Arya without looking at each other in the slightest. Nguyn was oozing charm. Doug was doing a head count of the bar, figuring out how many beers this was going to cost him and trying his best not to regret it already.

"If I hear one complaint, one squeak, you are banned from the bar. BANNED." And she made to move off.

"Excuse me, Ms. Arya, ma'am," said Nguyn.

"Yes?"

"My friend would very much like to celebrate our victory by giving you a kiss."

Did the bar hold its breath? Were all eyes turned to them? No, not really. The Repenta wasn't that kind of a place. People had better things to do than pay attention to anyone else's drama. But Doug was gratified when Arya stepped over and said congratulations and received an honest kiss. "I'll start a tab."

The foursome was somewhat subdued as they moved through the bar, greeting their many friends and acquaintances. But the bet was running its course, coming to a close, ending as all fun times must. They behaved themselves perfectly, Arya's injunction ringing in their heads. Doug was actually grateful for it, because one booth back, hidden from the entrance, sat Irina. His team looked at each other but even Nguyn the Charmer wasn't up for that challenge. Doug shrugged and walked over to her table. "Hey, Irina…"

"I heard. Congrats, and drop dead."

"Back at ya. But lemme buy you a beer." Which he did, and spent a few minutes talking to her while the triplets of destiny worked the crowd. Janine eventually came over and tapped him on his shoulder.

"Dooooug, we've got 10 minutes and 12 names. Come on," she whined.

Mable and her date, bang bang. Susan. Lloyd from Prospectors and an Orphe (drinking a virgin Bloody Mary). They worked their way back, to the last booth.

"Helloooo, big boy."

Doug shook his head and had to give a smile. "Hello Mara."

"So perceptive. You never mistake me for my brother. You never even hesitate. I like that in a BLADE."

"You know you're the good looking one."

Lara Mara fluttered his eyelashes and twinkled up from his seat. "So, I hear you went big today. Going to continue the trend?"

Doug checked his watch. "For 3 more minutes. Do you mind?"

"I'd be crushed if you didn't."

Doug shrugged and planted yet another kiss on yet another unlikely partner. It was, well, almost sweet, because he swore he detected a hint of a natural blush on Mara's cheeks. And definitely a strong rush of cherry lip balm. "Ah, Harriers. I do so love all that you do, for the good of New Los Angeles. Makes a fellow happy just thinking about it."

"Sure, Mara, glad to be of service." They said goodbye, and Doug moved to join the rest of his group.

He slid into their booth, finally feeling the edge leaving him, finally ready to relax. Janine was sitting stiffly on the far edge, looking like she was ready either to cry or scream and still not making eye-contact with Ray. Opposite her, and staring like a laser at a point 10 cm left of her, Ray was trying to get his cool back (had he ever had it?), arguing that they had indeed managed to kiss everyone in Repenta, at least everyone worth kissing. Nguyn was arguing that no, they hadn't. ('They'? thought Doug, what's with this 'they'? It was ME.) Irina Akulov had evaded their grasp, and therefore they could not say they had 100 percented the diner. A valiant effort, but unfinished.

"You need to kiss one more person to make up for that," announced Nguyn. "Math doesn't lie."

"Next person in the door," suggested Ray. "Provided that it doesn't get Arya mad."

All four turned their heads to stare at the door. It refused to provide anyone. They continued to stare, expectantly.

Doug caught himself making wishes. Please, Hope, that would be nice. Or Elma again, he thought the rules could bend to let him kiss her again. Or, well, …

The door opened and they jumped, craning their necks to see who it was.

"Coco!" shouted Janine, waving madly.

Ray echoed her with his own shout. "Jo!" He stifled into silence when Janine shot him an angry look.

That was the conclusion of the mission. Doug doled out two more kisses to the confused but game staff of the Sunshine Café (closed early every Thursday), who were promptly invited to join them. Everyone shifted in the booth to welcome the additions, and they settled in for a congenial evening. For the next few hours, new people wandered over to give their congratulations. A few even offered to let Doug increase the high score of the bet, but he waved all that away. "I'm done, thanks. Next time."

That was about all he said. He let the other five do the chatting, describing the battle and the difficulty, the newcomers asking questions about what was hardest or scariest. He just kind of drifted, glad of a job well done. He didn't want to move until it was time to shift himself home.

But move he did, and right promptly, at a ping from his comm device. "Excuse me, gotta take this," he said as he rose up from the table.

"Hang on a sec, can't hear a thing…" he yelled into the device as he worked his way outside to the relative quiet and fresh air of the parking lot. "Sorry, Repenta, you know, couldn't hear you if you shouted…"

"I said, congratulations, Dougie!" Alexa's bright smile shone even in the limited display. "Tika says thanks, too. You know, it was her friend got stomped the other day."

"Yeah, I heard it was an Outfitter crew," he said, too casually. "How're they doing?"

"They'll be back sometime next week. Matty got the worst of it, it may take a little while longer. Tika was beside herself when they all came in. She's been in and out of the Mimeosome center, checking on him day and night."

"Aww, that's sweet."

"Nuts. I'm thinking she's using it as an excuse. I need someone as a target for a shield test, and she doesn't want to help. So, are you done being crazy?"

"Taking down a tyrant is all part of the job."

"Not that, you loon. I heard you went nuts all across New LA. What will you think of next?"

"It wasn't that bad. Who told you?"

"I don't know. Somebody warned me." [Lila. It was Lila. And it wasn't a warning, just useful information, in a blue speech bubble.] Alexa's smile grew cheeky. "Why'd you think I waited to congratulate you until now?"

"Chicken."

"Bwawk bwawk bladdy bwawk. I wasn't going near you guys until you went sane again."

"Come on down, we're just hanging out."

Alexa frowned. "Sorry, can't, I've got a backlog you would not believe. Worse, not a single skell in the batch. Maybe I'll swing by your place later. I have something nice from that chocolate place, a bunch of us wanted to give it to you as a thank you. This means a lot to us Outfitters." She hung up.

"Bye, Alexa," he said quietly to the silent device. "And you're welcome." He stared at it for a second longer before giving himself a shake. Damn, they'd done it, done good for all of New LA, and if it took craziness to do it, well, he had enough for everyone. He popped the comm device into his pocket and made his way back into the diner.

* * *

 **A/N: Strictly speaking, this should come later in the batch, but last chapter was such a downer, I needed something gratuitously fluffy.**

 **Sorry, I couldn't quite stick the landing, oh well. And once again! Once again! I keep trying to hook Doug and Alexa up, and this is what happens. I build the most unlikely and pointed set-up and she just goes and hides. I give up. (No I don't. Because if Doug doesn't fit the description of "giant robot," who does?) And, dope slap, I forgot all about Cross. Well, they were probably busy. With Nagi. (Not that way! Not that way! Unless you are going to write me a story.)**


	4. Things Were Confused in his Bed

**A/N: Alexa needs tequila and stat. Doug needs to relax. Will Project Miran Mezcal end up happily?**

 **Warning: drinking and swears. You'd think Frye would show up, but no. Set post game, with spoilers/sorrow inherent to that period.**

 **All the good bits belong to the geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT (who also are working big on Breath of the Wild, oh can you not stand it?). The story references my other Alexa & Doug stories but you don't need to read them. And a shout out for my OC Lila, just a skell fuel station attendant with a blue speech bubble and a shady past.**

* * *

Things were confused in his bed, that was the real problem. Sometimes he had company, and that was pretty fun. Sometimes he gave his bed to a guest, while he rode the couch. He needed a bigger couch, that was for sure, otherwise it was cool. Sometimes he was alone, and it could be lonely or it could be relaxing, depending. Sometimes the bed was empty, which was fine, because then he'd be busy with something elsewhere, even occasionally busy with someone elsewhere. Usually something, to be honest. And sometimes he wasn't alone, but it wasn't company.

It was the last thing that had really pissed off the girl he'd had as company most recently. Woman, excuse me. Well, we all know Mira didn't lack for dinosaurs. Maybe if he'd dated women and not girls, or at least thought of them that way, things'd be better. Probably not. The woman had been beautiful, all legs and long black hair, and playful, and he'd had a really good feeling about her. He'd enjoyed talking to her, listening to her. He'd kind of felt a little hopeful around her. Until he'd kissed her one morning and apologized for having to shoot out so early, on account of a breakfast date, and she had gone instantly furious.

In retrospect, there had been … there might have been signs. She'd laughed when he'd made jokes, which might count as a bad sign because almost no one liked his jokes. Her interests were fairly different from his simpler tastes (because if a movie didn't have at least one explosion, he was less than enthused). Mostly it had been that she'd gotten impatient when he'd been busy in the evening, even when he made time to have dinner with her at least. Busy with anything: work, visiting Lin and the 'tato (and having a snack, let's be honest), the small side business he was developing. Yeah, that business, that was the real thing, taking up his extra time and interest.

No, dammit, the real thing was that sometimes, at night, he'd …

"Gimme a tequila. And hold the worm, because those I got already and all on two legs!"

He didn't even look over. He'd chosen Rosemoss because he just didn't have the energy to argue anything with anyone tonight. The bar here wasn't that crowded and certainly wasn't that loud. Rosemoss specialized in homey atmosphere and surprisingly good diner fare. If you wanted rowdy, there were several other places to go first (pro tip: if Frye was there, you'd found the spot). That said, they were a business, and they had a bar, and if a patron wanted to spend their credits exclusively on alcohol, they'd pour until someone got uncomfortable. He supposed that in a second he'd have to step in and babysit. Not that he was sober enough at the moment, but you did what you had to in order to keep NLA safe.

"Dougie!" His second was over. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Drinking. Why are you here, Alexa?"

"Trying to drink. Do you know, the Repenta has enough vodka to float the Ma-non ship but can't even keep a full bottle of tequila for Outfitters in need?"

"Yeah, I'm crying for you."

"Well, I'm resourceful. And I found you! Bonus!" The bartender had gingerly placed a shot glass of pale yellowish liquid that resembled tequila in front of the red-haired woman. Alexa patted the bar stool next to her and smiled.

Doug shifted over calmly, catching the bartender's eye to place his own order. Another beer and a bump. Because he hadn't been joking when he'd told her his purpose. Alexa downed her shot, ordered another, and took a deep breath. He could see that her eyes were practically glowing, but beyond that he had no idea what her mood was. He must have been drinking more than he'd realized.

"Here I am, in a crisis I tell ya, and the Repenta fails me!"

"Keep it down, Alexa."

"Fails me!" she said, in a piercing stage whisper. An improvement, he supposed. "But no problem is too tricky for old Alexa! You can count on her to find the solution! Except when you don't really care to."

"So it's work stuff."

"The worst. I'm telling ya," she repeated, "I am about beside myself. I just don't know." Her voice had trailed to nothing, and she'd downed the next shot, playing with the empty glass, slowly spinning it along the bar and leaving a trail of small rings in the oily polish.

Doug looked really hard at Alexa, trying to size her up. It crossed his few remaining unimpaired brain cells that he'd seen her angry and excited and worried and joyous, sloppy giddy riotous joyous, but he'd never seen her sad. This looked a little like sad. He'd never thought about that, Alexa and sad. What kind of friend never considered that a person could be sad?

"Um, are you sad?" he asked, and then instantly wished that somebody had had the kindness to shoot him a few minutes earlier. Mediator material he was not. Certainly not when he was this drunk.

"What? No! No! I'm furious! And irate! Righteously irate! Yeah, that's what I am. Another!" she waved to the bartender, who responded with another tequila, but very slowly. Yup, they probably both needed to leave soon, before the management made a polite suggestion.

"Sure. Come on. Let's go hang at my place."

"You got tequila?"

"I got beer."

Alexa heaved a great sigh. "Okay, but only because I like you. And because this is NOT TEQUILA!"

Doug hushed her, paid their tabs ("I'll pay you back, really, next time!" "Shhh, s'kay." "Thanks!" "Shhh."), and they made their retreat. As they wobbled gracefully down Melville Street, avoiding passing humans and xenos by the barest of margins, Alexa kept muttering about the lack of tequila in New Los Angeles.

"The name! The name alone means that we really need to address this issue. It's racism, I tell you! Eurocentrism. New Los Angeles, Dougie! Not New Vodkagrad!"

"Frye keeps that place in the black. Of course they're going to have…"

"You know what would be awesome?!" She pivoted in front of Doug and grabbed the front of his t-shirt, shaking him lightly. "Mezcal! We need native Miran mezcal. With native Miran worms!"

"God, Alexa." Doug had to laugh. "You'd need a tank the size of a bus."

Alexa was focused, deep in thought. "There's something that kind of looks like agave in Oblivia. We need to study this. But I don't trust the Repenta. They'll just make something boring. I got it!" Her head shot up. She shook him again. "Professor B.! He's crazy brilliant enough to pull it off."

"Just crazy."

She was already backtracking toward the industrial district. "We don't have a minute to lose!"

"Oh, no." Doug had had enough. He put on some speed and caught up with her easily, grabbing her around the waist and spinning her back in the other direction. "This can hold. Trust me."

"Not you too." Her eyes snapped at him.

"We will achieve mezcal, Alexa, but not tonight. Tonight, we're going back to my place and emptying my mini-fridge."

"No one trusts me. No one gets it. You all want to stop me and for no reason!"

"Alexa, we're too drunk to start anything."

"You're drunk, I'm angry! With justification, and you're giving me more." Her face turned vicious. "I bet you've been drinking because you just want that dream about Lao again."

Doug dropped his hands to his side. She could have punched him in the gut and it couldn't have begun to hurt like this. He was glad they'd reached a dark part of the street because he didn't want anyone to see his face.

Alexa took a deep, ragged breath. "Oh god, Doug! I'm sorry!"

"S'okay," he muttered.

"No, it's not. I'm sorry! Oh god, Doug! I'm sorry!" She was holding on to his shirt again, but she wasn't shaking him, just trying to hold on, like she was afraid he'd float away.

"S'okay," he repeated. So original, the two of them, he thought bitterly.

"It's not." Did he mention, so original? Alexa leaned her head against his chest. "You're about my best friend, and I said something unforgivable. I'm sorry."

"Probably true, though," he said sadly.

"Doesn't matter, and if it is, that's your choice. If it is. You've got your reasons and no one can say a thing about it. I'm sorry."

He sighed, and gave her a loose hug that could have bent normal ribs. "It's okay. Really. You aren't the first one to mention it."

"Tell me their names and I'll mess them up for ya." She gave a hiccup that should have been a laugh but sounded a lot like tears. She still had her face against his chest, so he couldn't be sure. Except his shirt felt a little damp. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"It's okay. They never apologized, but you have. So it's okay." Because, yeah, for three weeks he'd hoped the beautiful, intelligent woman with the shining black hair would apologize or at least talk about what she'd hissed at him from the comfort of his bed. But she'd wouldn't even give him the time of day, just told him coldly that she was done trying to fix him. Totally unfair. He hadn't asked anyone to fix him.

He patted Alexa's back. "Come on, Alexa." He paused. "Why are you losing it?"

Alexa pressed a little closer into him. He had to lean in to hear her, she was so quiet. "They took me off Speedy. Permanently."

"Aw shit." No wonder she was plastered and striking out and generally emotional. She loved that prototype skell project more than anything he'd ever seen. If skells were her thing, Speedy lit her up like no other. "Come on, let's get back and you can tell Uncle Dougie everything." He cleared his throat, surprised he'd said that. Different times, different tears, skinned knees and missing stuffies. He cleared his throat again.

They were a somewhat subdued twosome, sitting on his couch, drinking beer and talking. Actually, Alexa was talking and gesturing, Doug worked on beer and encouragements. It came down to that last outing, when they'd accidentally tangled with a smallish tyrant. Well, small compared to other things wandering Mira, but still the size of a few angry redwood trees duct taped together. And, yes, Speedy the Skell had taken a few hits, but they hadn't been looking for trouble. She'd gotten a few sharp comments, but she hadn't seen the demotion coming.

"Yesterday, my card was refused. I asked, and they said something about restructuring teams. I tried not be get too stressed. I mean, Tika's card still lit up green, so, you know, I'd just be shuffled. Then today, some shirt from Sakuraba sent me a note, I'm off and permanently. They didn't appreciate my treating Speedy as my own personal skell.

"I've never done that! I asked, I always asked, and not just asked. I got permission too! I kept it safe even under the worst situations. I pushed it, sure, I'm SUPPOSED to push it, see what it can do. That's what they pay me for. That's what they're supposed to want ...

"But I'm off the project. And now I'll never get to see what Speedy can become!" Her voice rose to almost a wail, and Doug handed her another napkin to dab her eyes. Because, yes, she'd burst into tears early on and wasn't trying to stop anymore.

"Idiots," Doug muttered darkly.

"Worse than that! I can't stand to think that Speedy's going to suffer! Yeah, okay, I mean, there are other techs that can work on him, but that tyrant, it opened my eyes. I had so many ideas, so many things to try! Speedy deserves everything he can get and I just don't know if they understand it."

"You could tell them."

She snorted through her tears. "I'm off the project, Doug. Off. Speedy's still a prototype, and no one's supposed to talk about it to any outsiders. Hell, I shouldn't be talking to you."

"Screw that."

"Yeah, whatever. Still, it means I can't tell them anything, and worse, they can't listen. Best chance, I suppose I could stand outside the locked door and scream suggestions at the top of my lungs."

"I'll buy you a megaphone."

"Or! Or! I could hire a skywriter to put up skematics!" She giggled.

"Nopon fireworks."

"Orphe graffiti artists!"

"Count me in. I'm good with spray paint." They were both laughing now. When they'd calmed down, Doug said, more seriously, "Honestly, Alexa, we were sent into that mess by BLADE. Orders straight from Eleonora. We did good, we saved the neck of that Nopon trader."

"Nopons don't have necks."

"What I'm saying is, you could get some push from authorities to get back on the project. Get the Blond Menace to put in a word. Or Tatsu could write something official."

Alexa snorted again. "Tatsu?! Get real, Doug. No one listens to that walking carbohydrate."

Doug shook his head. "You'd be surprised. BLADE is worried about Nopon right now, and the furballs take him seriously as their ambassador. The xeno community carries weight. You could get their Orphe rep to put in several good words. Plus Koko. She liked you."

"She called me crazy."

"She meant it nicely."

"I don't want to make a fuss. I don't want to be whiney. I know that they've got a plan and…"

"Two words: f%# ing idiots. Me, I won't be comfortable using Speedy for reals until you give it the green light. Nobody else. Alexa Approved or I'm not riding in it. You could trademark that." He laid his arm across the back of the couch and gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Seriously, Alexa, make the fuss. You owe it to New LA."

"There was that sandstorm too…"

"Didn't show up on Frontier Nav until it was already there."

"You checked?"

He shrugged. "I felt guilty."

Alexa looked down at her hands and continued quietly. "And the telethia."

"What?" Lucky he hadn't had a swallow of beer, because that would have been ugly.

"You slept through that."

Doug scratched his sideburns carefully. "Well, um, couldn't have been much or I'd have woken up, I suppose. Alexa, teams go up to the Roost and they bump into tyrants and sandstorms, even when they're lucky enough to get warning signs. And we drop into a fall and some of the stupider ones take their skells into waterfalls, for, um, reasons, but they do. Everything you did was going to happen sooner or later, and I'd rather have you check it out first. Just not with me jammed in your lap." Yeah, that had been an adventure, very stomach churning and cramped.

Alexa sighed and leaned against Doug. He knew she was going to fall asleep with him as a largish pillow. She had that amazing skill, dropping off instantly the moment she decided to. He sat still and didn't think about anything, except maybe whether he'd try to sleep even though he was due for a bad time. But of course he'd try. One thing he'd learned on Earth: guys who tried to avoid dreams by avoiding sleep always ended up in with a medical discharge, if they weren't in jail. Or dead. Being a robot changed nothing. He'd get some sleep, wake up shaking, and maybe get a few more hours before morning. It wasn't really all that late. He supposed it showed how efficiently they'd gone about their drinking.

"I'm not going to do it, make a fuss, you know? The customer has their reasons, and a BLADE doesn't argue with orders." She sounded sad but determined.

He snapped his eyes open. Huh, must have drifted off himself. "I suppose."

"I'm right."

"It still stinks for everybody. You do a good job." He paused. "Tell you what. How about I ask the Commander, nothing official, just a kind of what the hell? If he says shut up, I shut up. If he decides to push, better for New LA."

"Not your business, you know that."

"I'm the guy in the skell when something goes wrong. Definitely my business."

Alexa sighed. "I can't stop you. If you think…"

"Well, I'll see. Maybe I won't."

Alexa lifted her head and looked at him. "That gives me an idea though. I'll ask Lila."

"What would the queen of crappy coffee know?"

"Psssh. The Ma-non like it. And I've seen you drink it."

"What good will that do?"

Alexa sat up, looking focused. "She's got some weird connection with Sakuraba, something sketchy from back on the Whale. And from early days here. He set her up with the original refueling station, you know that?"

"News to me. Well, now she's the queen of sketchy coffee. Why her?"

"She's not BLADE, I'd just be going on a rant if anyone hears me, and she never lies to me."

Now it was Doug's turn to make a rude noise. "You're too trusting, Alexa. I'd bet money Lila's an international drug dealer gone into retirement or something. No one nice gets a hit put on them. But, yeah, sure, you do that."

"Thanks, Doug. You always give me the best ideas." Alexa smiled at him, not her fullest effort, but genuine. It made the night a little better, and made him worry less about what any other woman in his future had to say.

And if his bed was confused, that made three of them. The bed, the couch, and him.

* * *

 **A/N: This story was supposed to go certain places, AAAAAAaaaaand no. I swear, someday! Someday! Or not, probably not, because if they're this drunk and frustrated and all we get is talking, it is not going to happen. Eldest Child declares that, and EC is the expert. But you never know. Maybe Doug will show up with an infant in a baby sling about 10 months after the organic redemption happens, and people will be all, "Aww, how sweet, he's babysitting for Alexa. I wonder who the father is." Until they register the kid as Tiffany Barrett for preschool. [And now I've written the fiction that demonstrates this point, uploaded whenever…]**

 **If you wonder why Ares is useless against things with ether resist, it is because Sakuraba NEVER LISTENED TO ALEXA. Next up: Lila has a solution, and Alexa is an ungrateful Outfitter.**


	5. How Can Skells Be Boring?

**How Can Skells Be Boring?**

 **A/n: Alexa is frustrated about the most boring of missions. Luckily, Doug talks her down a bit. With fries. What is it with food and these characters? Built off of the previous chapter.**

 **Spoilers to at least Ch. 5, probably all game, I'm starting to lose track. Minor swears. And extreme skell geekery, because Alexa.**

 **All the good stuff belongs to the brilliant folks of MONOLITH SOFT (Xenoblade N(e)X(t), please). Lila and her sketchy station and crew are mine, and man are they a cranky bunch.**

* * *

"This is crap! You're wasting time and resources!"

"What do you care? I'm the client."

"My time! The team's time! This is a waste! We've done enough, so let's drop it already!"

"I disagree." Lila was looking remarkably stoic in the face of Alexa's fury. The more Alexa waved her arms around, the stiffer the fuel station manager stood.

And Alexa was waving her hands plenty, and just this short of stomping. Actually, just this short of giving Lila a hard push, except that then Lila'd probably deck her, if the other techs didn't do it first. The skinny edgy guy at the nearest bay was tapping a wrench unnecessarily and perhaps pointedly against his palm. Alexa ignored him, but nonetheless tried to calm herself.

Screw calm. This was ridiculous. For three weeks, she'd been going out on pointless, boring crap missions, all paid for by Lila, or rather, by the Auxiliary Skell Refueling Station #1.02. Which meant, in plain language, by Lila. A waste. Boring. Embarrassing. They'd go out, same location, same weather conditions and time of day, Alexa in the same skell, and they'd hunt indigen until her fuel ran out. The same indigen. And Alexa was the only one doing the hunting. The rest of the team would stand around, watching, or maybe wandering off and fighting something interesting, while Alexa blasted away at the same puny critters over and over. The number of forfexes she'd cleared in Sylvalum, now that was something she didn't even want to remember ever again. Then her skell would run dry, and the team would haul her useless carcass home to Lila's loving care.

Next day, same thing. Exact same thing. After four or five runs, they'd switch to a new location, new set up and target, same load of boring.

"I disagree. You're making a lot of progress. Most of the list is done, and I'm pleased with the results."

"Ducky for you, Lila. What I see is a pointless exercise and you being obtuse about it."

"Nice vocab, Alexa. Very Hector of you."

"I'm not stupid. This job is stupid. You don't need this many trials, and they don't need to be this specific. I'm telling you, drop it and let's all get on with our lives."

"This is exactly what I need. Keep going."

"No. I'm done. I will not be coming back. Hire some other idiot, because this Outfitter is out."

Because it got more embarrassing. The skells she was sent out in, nothing wrong with them. Far from it. They all came with top-of-the-line weaponry. Something to really use against a tyrant or two. But no, the mission stated that they had to be used against specific, boring enemies. Come on, she thought, using a G-Piledriver on random grexes? Really? Really? It was so not cool, standing there, blasting away at puny indigen while the rest of the team watched. Not even the rush of the weapon itself could distract her from her misery.

It wasn't even paying that well. Doug had agreed to help out, but he must be getting twitchy about the depressing pay rate. She'd asked, kind of, about a week into it, when she'd realized what a drag this whole thing was turning into. He'd shrugged it off, saying that steady work paid the mortgage just as well as a good job. Nice of him, but clearly this did not qualify as a good job.

She just couldn't keep doing this. Time to cut the cord, let everyone off the hook. Good lord, how had she got so stupid as to accept this mission? Nope, not thinking about that either, not anymore. The less she thought about Speedy and that project, and how much she missed him, the better.

She hadn't reached the Outfitters' Hangar when heavy footsteps caught up with her. Not Lila, she was barely the height of a Ma-non, and definitely not one to be chasing after her. Somebody bigger. She turned around and forced a smile.

"Hey ya, Alexa," Doug stuttered to a halt and tried to stand there, casual like. Fail. He really should learn not to pretend to be cool.

"What do you want, because I need to get busy on something else."

"What are you up to now?" he asked with real interest.

Alexa gritted her teeth and then gave up. "Nothing. I am busy on nothing."

"Then let me buy you a cup of coffee or something. Okay?"

"I do not need a comforting drink."

"You chewed out Lila in her own station. You're lucky to be standing. Last guy did that, she floored with a portable fuel tank. Those go at 10 kilo easy."

"She'd never do that to me. We go way back."

"Come on. You're on a break, so am I. Let's grab a bite or a coffee or something."

They retreated to the Sunshine Café, partly because Alexa only wanted a coffee and partly because Doug seemed to need to get his flirt on with yet another waitress. He didn't have a type that Alexa could spot, but if a chick had a platter food, he was always all smiles and flattery.

"So, explain it to me, using small words," he asked around some fries.

"This mission is a bummer, and I can't stand it anymore."

"Well, at least you're being honest. I heard you accused her of wasting resources. Them's fighting words."

"Aw, she knows I don't mean it."

"I'm not sure. She sounded plenty pissed when she called me."

"Oh great. You got sicced on me like some dog."

"You are oozing charm today, you know that?"

"Since when do I have to be nice to anyone?"

"All I'm saying, cranky bitch looks better on Irina than on you. Well, it looks more natural." He shoved his fries towards her.

"I'm telling and you are so dead." She grabbed not one but three fries and pushed the basket back to him.

"Yeah, probably deservedly so. Anyway, what bug got up your, er, nose?"

She had to laugh at his blush. "Nothing much, just tired and embarrassed and bored. I need a break, and this mission is going on too long."

"You don't think it is worth it?"

"Probably is, but in such tiny steps I can't stand it. Lila'll pull all this data together, come up with a magic fuel formula, and save BLADE half a litre a week. Yeah."

"Per skell, per mission, that adds up."

"But it's so embarrassing. You all just stand around, looking annoyed."

"We're in skells. How can a skell look annoyed?"

"I can feel it."

"Skell psychic, that's new. Or is it skellepathic?"

"Skellepathetic, more. Next you're going to tell me I should apologize to Lila and be a good BLADE and get the job done." Alexa rested her forehead precariously on the top of her coffee mug.

"Now that you mention it…"

"Okay, but give me a little time. I'll do it by dinner." She lifted up her face, ignorant of the temporary ring the mug had pressed into her face. (Doug wisely did not point it out.)

He dug into the fries. "I thought you guys were buddies or something."

"Not exactly. We go way back, though. She used to work for me, on Earth."

"She's like twice your age, and sort of smart. How'd that happen?"

"You saying I'm sort of dumb?"

"No, easy, I'm saying, um, how did that happen?"

"I was a local back then. Living not too far from the Project Exodus base. I got a night shift when I was still in high school."

Doug frowned. He stopped eating, even though a fry hung in mid-air, ready to be sacrificed. "Hold on. They were only pulling the most trained people for the project. You're telling me you were some kind of Lin-like genius?"

"Thanks for the look of surprise. Naw, I was only a so-so student, didn't make much sense to me, because I knew I'd have to grab the first job I could get to help my family. My brothers, man, back then, they could clean out a refrigerator between dinner and bedtime, and they'd barely started middle school.

"So, maybe the project started with only the best, but trust me, there came a point, just as they started to ramp up, they were hiring just about anyone with a pulse. Everyone knew about it, at least around there. I was always on the hunt for jobs I could do after school, and the rest is history."

"Doing what, or do I even need to ask?"

No, he really didn't. She told him anyway. "Skellllllllllls! It was love at first sight." She sighed and smiled. "Something about those big old gorgeous things just got to me." She sighed again.

"You're not telling me that they put you on the dev team."

"Naw. Cleaning crew. But I was good. I was INSPIRED!" She sat up straight, radiating joy.

"And you worked your way up to…"

"Chief of the cleaning crew! Then I got promoted to minor maintenance. I was in heaven, because that meant I got to move those babies. Oh, Doug, that first time, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven."

Luckily, he didn't tell her to calm down, because she would have thrown his fries at him if he had. He just smiled and pushed the almost empty basket back towards her. "So you were Our Lady of Oil Changes. Then what?"

"Well, it was getting towards crunch time. I'd been there maybe 3 years, and even I couldn't keep up with everything that needed doing, especially once Nagi swung that scholarship at UC Bakersfield for me. Bless that man. Anyway, I started putting in a polite request for help every Monday, right before I'd leave to blitz through sophomore year." Her eyes grew thoughtful with memories. "It's amazing how many class hours you can jam between 9am Monday and 6 pm Tuesday. Go Roadrunners!"

Doug had a different view. "Basically, you're saying you yelled your head off to Eleonora."

"And Nagi and the Chief. And every person that wandered into the hangar. And Lin and…"

"I get it. So they gave you Lila."

"You do get it. I thought they were being nice to me. I didn't realize that they needed to stash her somewhere. I only found out later. Light and space were wrecking her mim, and the desert has a lot of that. Not much else. Let me tell you, it was one boring place to grow up." Alexa shrugged. "It worked out okay. She took over the night shift, staying in the hangar, left all the cool jobs, like skell pickup or delivery, for me."

"And you protected her when she could have been bounced from the project."

Alexa gave a rueful smile and shrugged. "I didn't realize she had a problem for like a month. She ended up telling me, wanted to make sure I was okay with it. She's weird and super stiff, but she's honest."

Doug snorted. "You keep telling yourself that."

"In her own creepy way, she is. I guess I owe her an apology. But, dammit, Doug, this job is killing me with dull."

"She got you back in a skell," he pointed out. He spoke the truth. She hadn't been allowed near anything resembling skell tests after she'd been removed from the Sakuraba SP005 prototype trials. Her darling Speedy. They'd cut her from the team after she had returned Speedy more than a little scuffed from an unscheduled encounter with a tyrant (one apparently made from an angry old growth forest).

It had left her bereft. Until Lila had come up with this ridiculous series of fuel usage missions, and made sure that Eleonora didn't let anyone but Alexa sign up for them.

"Yes, and let that be a lesson to everyone. Be careful what you wish for, because it may be BORING."

As they headed back to the administration area, Doug had one more suggestion. "Does it have to be you, battering targets over and over?"

"She wants pure data. That means only the my skell can fight, not yours."

"But does it have to be you in that skell? I mean, could we switch out sometimes, sort of to spare your puny mind? It's so small, I'm not sure we can find it if you truly lose it."

"Gee, thanks," she shot back. She stopped, just on the edge of the refueling station. "You mean it?"

"Sure. You can catch a nap while I'm doing it. Half the time that's what we're doing while we're waiting for the trials to end. The rest of the team can take turns too."

"Doug, you're the best," Alexa said, giving him a smile usually reserved only for the better skells. "I'll ask Lila, get her to agree." And she trotted off, not to apologize, but to renegotiate the terms of the most boring mission involving skells known to man.

[Narrator's note: Lila asked me to state that there will be fuel savings well above half a litre if she ever manages to reformulate the weight ratios, and that "idiot Interceptors" (her words, not mine) had run out of fuel under exactly the conditions that Alexa had been testing, using exactly the same over-powered weapons against the same under-powered enemies, and without anyone to haul them home to safety. No casualties yet, but never underestimate "the stupidity of some BLADEs" (again, her words, NOT mine). If nothing else, Alexa's public theatre of embarrassment might make them sit on their hands before using a flail against a gnat.]

* * *

 **A/N: 1) I love these babies, and I will not stop writing boring stuff about them. I swear, someday! Someday! And … no, not very likely. [Ha ha, wait two more chapters!]**

 **2) I keep sprinkling in Lila and her station and Gino (the edgy tech, yes he has a name and a back story) because that way I'll get enough courage to put up the 13 bits and counting that I've written about them.**

 **3) I have a very strong head canon that the Whale Project occurred on the Southern California/Nevada border, and all of the lower Central Valley is now in play. I hereby declare that Alexa grew up near Barstow, probably more like Harrison Hot Springs or someplace like that.**

 **Next up: SPOILER-A-GO-GO, when somebody shows Doug the footage of what happens after the credits. He doesn't take it well.**


	6. Sensitive Material

**Sensitive Material**

 **A/N: Once again, a story of life on Doug's couch, where Doug and Alexa play a frightening game of 20 questions about the future of NLA.**

 **Warning: major bummer, swears, and TOTAL SPOILERS (it was the butler, in the cellar, with the candlestick!). Everything good belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT (now hiring, oh to speak Japanese and have talent and live in Kyoto, drool, and WHAT ARE THEY MAKING?).**

* * *

Alexa stepped through Doug's door in a hurry. "I came as soon as I could." Actually, she'd come sooner than that. Back at the Outfitters' hangar, there was a half completed test on a new rifle from Six Stars, a real disappointment even for a company that didn't do ranged weapons as their main product. She would have dropped it even sooner, Doug has sounded so, well, she wasn't sure, but it hadn't sounded good. She had done just as much as she had to so that she wouldn't have to restart the trial all over again, and then booked it over to his apartment as fast as she could.

He didn't look good either.

The living room was a few steps from the door. To be honest, one largish step for her, half a step for him. He had his t.v. set to news, a calming nattering listing the newest developments, newest ideas. Actually, not that much new. Right now there was a feature on Ma-non fashion for Orphe, which was almost mind-boggling enough to distract her. But he really didn't look good. She still wasn't sure why she should be worried, but she certainly was.

"What's up?" she said, keeping her voice neutral.

He was pacing. Back and forth. He didn't join her on the couch, not even when she patted the cushion next to her. Just kept pacing, stomp stomp, and his jaw was set tight enough to crack. His eyes were narrowed, and he kept doing that hard swallow he did when he was trying not to yell at a teammate for putting the rest of them in danger. She'd been on enough missions with him, and seen it enough, sometimes directed at herself.

Had she done something stupid? Destructively stupid? Nope, not that she could think of. Even if she had (and she really didn't think she had), it was better to get him to spill the beans. Easier on everyone, and smart too, because he didn't blow up over nothing. Something was definitely wrong.

"Doug, sit down and talk," she said. Nope. He gave his head a little shake and kept pacing.

Alexa bounced up and stood directly in his way. He almost stumbled, trying not to crash into her, so focused he was on going from Point A to Point B and return. She grabbed his arms, and could feel him tugging, trying to return to movement. "Doug! Hello! Douggie! What the hell is wrong with you?"

He tugged again, and she saw nothing for it but to wrap her arms around him. "Are you loco? In need of a reset? Because I know where the off switch is and…"

He'd grabbed her arms then, suddenly, and arched back. But not away, just giving himself a little distance. His head was back, looking up wildly, panting. He squeezed her arms, a little too hard. She gave a squeak. "Hey! That hurts."

"Sorry, sorry." It was like all the energy left him, draining straight into the ground. The tug was gone, and he leaned in towards her, putting his head on the top of hers.

"Hey, it's okay," she whispered. She wrapped her arms around him again, very gently, and gave his back a comforting pat. She had no idea what was going on, but Doug was in trouble, and it was bad, and honestly she was just a little freaked out about it.

"The couch. The couch is a very good idea right now. As an Outfitter, I need to check it and you need to escort me. Come on." She drew him over to it, again hardly more than a step away. He looked a little stunned, blinking. After a moment, she said, "And now we sit down. You first."

To her great relief, he actually sat down, staring blankly at the t.v. The Ma-non fashion show was over, and the weather report was on. Fine. That could take several minutes. Mira had a lot of different kinds of weather to report on. Alexa tucked her legs underneath herself, and held onto his closest hand with both of hers. Then she sat there, waiting to feel safe again, like a survivor of a ship wreck, clinging to a raft.

As the weather report switched to a commercial (Army Pizza, where the flavors are a blast!), she bumped Doug's shoulder with her head. "Doug. What's up?" She spoke quietly, but urgently.

"There's this girl, a Prospector…" Doug started, then stopped. A shudder ran through his body.

Alexa rolled her eyes slightly, and felt herself getting angry. Doug and his flirts. Was that all it was, yet another breakup? Because if that was all it was, she'd just gotten worked up over nothing, and somebody was going to pay. Maybe Doug, maybe the nameless Prospector. Still, that didn't feel right. She asked carefully, "What happened?"

"Everything. It's all over." He was still looking blankly at the t.v.

Alexa looked at her friend. Looked at the t.v. Looked at his tiny, simple living room, decorated in no style whatsoever, except mostly brown. This was not working, not at all. But she didn't think getting him outside and moving would help either. He looked like he'd start running for the Oblivia Gap if she let him out the door. No, she didn't like that image. Not that.

When a test goes badly, one thing you can do is restart it, with a fresh target, a fresh round of ammo. If it's armor, you take it off and reattach it. If it's a skell, you turn it off, count to ten, and restart. None of these things seemed appropriate for the situation. But sometimes just letting a piece cool off, untouched, allowed you to continue. They had a bench in a closet for just this purpose. You'd put the knife or helmet or whatnot on the bench, turn off the light, close the door, and walk down the hall for no purpose. A minute later, you'd walk back, pick it up and give it one more try. The Chamber of Last Attempts, they called it.

She didn't think Dougie would like it if she picked him up and put him in that closet. Not that she could lift him, plus there was that whole Oblivia thing, no. And Doug didn't have a closet in his apartment. So she'd have to make one.

She got up and switched off the t.v. Doug flinched a little, but didn't say a word. She closed the blinds, turned off the light in the kitchenette, turned off the light in the hall. His eyes followed her, but he didn't turn his head. Still, that was a good sign. Last, she slapped the light switch by Doug's ear, and the room went dark. Not pitch black, but dark enough that she had to grope her way a little back to her seat next to Doug. He'd held out a hand to guide her, another good sign. She returned to her original position of life raft refugee, holding Doug's hand. They sat in silence for too long.

"What is it?" she finally asked.

Doug gave a deep breath but said nothing, almost groan.

"Is it … is it about Lao?" Because that was about the only thing, the only person she could think of that would hurt Doug this bad.

"No. Yes. No."

She'd have smacked herself in frustration if she'd been willing to let go of his hand. Or smacked him, except he seemed very fragile. Doug and fragile, so unlikely, but she knew that he was, just as she knew that her darling Speedy, fastest skell on the planet and no punk fighter to boot, was not immune to sandstorms or telethia.

"Yes or no? Which is it? Because I'm dying right here and I need you to tell me something."

"The Lifehold," he said.

"Yeah? So? The Lifehold. We got it, they just have to organize…"

"God, no. It's not what you think. Any of it. And now…"

"Doug, I'm asking one last time, tell me what's going on!"

Doug sat up a bit, straightening himself. "I shouldn't be telling you any of this. I should pretend I never heard anything myself."

Relieved though she was to hear him talking in an almost normal voice, Alexa was not pleased to be shut out. She wasn't going to just take it like a good BLADE. He's scared her silly for the past hour and she wasn't feeling okay yet. She looked fiercely at him, a wasted effort in the darkness. "Douglas Barrett. You have opened a can of worms or whoop-ass or whatever. Either you tell me, or I go figure it out myself, using only my wits and the twenty words you've spoken since I got here. If I get it wrong, really wrong, you know I will end up blaming you."

He didn't laugh. Dammit, he was supposed to laugh. She could usually manage that. "It's destroyed."

"What? No, don't talk stupid, if it were damaged we'd be…"

"Not damaged. Destroyed."

"… we'd be dead, and I for one am not dead. Do I look dead? No. So, it's not destroyed. You rescued it yourself. You said so. You and Rook and … and Lao …"

"He knew, we're all dead already …. he must have known…"

Alexa didn't like the shift in Doug's tone, back into that broken record loop of pain. What to do? What to do? A failing test, can't restart, the Chamber helped, let's try … overloading. Push a weapon so hard it has to respond. She fired off her worst and wildest guess, sure to be wrong but it would force him to correct her.

"So you're trying to tell me that the Lifehold was a ruin, destroyed during the escape from Earth. We've just been robots all along. Plus, the Ganglion are coming back to build a Dairy Queen. Am I close?"

Doug shook like he'd been blasted with ether. His breathing had turned into a wheeze.

"Holy crap, I was joking. I'm not right, am I? Because if I'm right…"

"Not during the escape. When we hit Mira. The Lifehold has been broken all this time."

Neither spoke for the longest time. Alexa didn't trust herself to say anything short of a shriek. She concentrated on inhaling, and exhaling, and willing Doug to follow suit. She could sense him relaxing. He wriggled his hand a little in hers, making her realize that she'd taken a death grip on his fist in the past minutes. Poor Doug, it was probably a little painful. She modified her routine. Inhale, exhale, relax her hands a little, repeat.

"When we hit Mira," Doug started, his voice almost normal, like he was rattling off the targets for that day's mission, "the Lifehold took enough damage to compromise the shields. It would have been okay if it had landed on dry land, probably, but it landed in the ocean. The whole thing flooded. Months ago. Everything was destroyed."

"So all our bodies, they all were…." The image was gruesome. Alexa stopped before saying more.

That's when Doug started to laugh. Oh no, wrong response. If he'd been a weapon in a test, she'd have hit the emergency stop right then and there. No good would come of this. He laughed harder.

Right. Emergency stop. She let go of his hand, climbed right into his lap, and grabbed his face between her hands. And kissed him. Not a particularly good kiss, and not very enjoyable, but very firm and distracting.

"What the hell?" he said, almost shaking her off.

"Got your attention. Good. You're freaking me out, so stop it." She swung back off him, settled into the corner of the couch, and grabbed his hand again. She gave it a little shake and said, low and surprisingly menacingly, "Do not make me do that again." She shook his hand, his whole arm, one more time for emphasis.

"What was that?"

"Me hitting the restart button. I repeat, you were freaking me out."

Doug sighed his normal sigh. Alexa decided to take charge of this test before something went wrong again.

"Let me see if I got this straight. The Lifehold was destroyed, or at least significantly damaged, right at our very arrival here."

"Yeah."

"And our bodies, I don't want to hear any of the details, none, but basically they were all destroyed." When he hesitated, she snapped at him sharply. "Do NOT start laughing again! Answer me: yes or no?"

"No." He sighed once more, but his voice stayed steady. "Those have been gone a long time."

"Where did they go?"

"They never were there to begin with."

"Enough of this. You just gotta start telling me stuff, and to hell with security and safety. This is secret, right? Because I swear I've heard nothing about it in the daily logs."

He laughed, softly, and Alexa relaxed. He was responding correctly again. She leaned back and waited for him to explain, but she kept hold of his hand as a precaution.

"Our bodies were never on board, Alexa. They all were destroyed with the Earth. Don't ask me about them, I don't know, I don't want to know even. What we took along was complete data for every person, all our memories and genetics and stuff, all running in a massive computer. That's what's been controlling our mims."

"Like brains in bottles, except computers."

"Pretty close. And not just us. They had an extra 20 million people stored."

Alexa couldn't even come up with an exclamation worthy of her amazement, even if she'd had the breath to say something. Eventually, she managed one word.

"Wow." She paused, reverently, for a moment. "So, what does that mean, we were just going to be robots for the rest of our lives?"

"No, there was plan to restore us, make new versions of our human bodies and jam us back in somehow."

"Oh-kay," she said, slowly. She didn't hide her hesitation.

"It didn't seem quite right to me either. Doesn't matter anyway, now."

"Because the Lifehold was damaged."

"Right. The computers, the ones holding our consciousnesses, those were all destroyed in the crash."

"And you know this because…"

"There's this Prospector. She was one of the crew that went with Elma, to restore main power. She spilled the beans by accident. She must have thought I already knew everything."

"Why would she think that?"

Doug turned to look at her in the dim apartment. She swore she could feel him raise an eyebrow, even if she couldn't see it.

"Right, never mind, what with you being one of the Heroes of the Lifehold and all…"

"I've known about the real bodies not being there for a while."

"Since when?" she asked sharply.

"Since we fought off Luxaar. Elma had to explain the complete and utter lack of stasis pods. Kind of hard to miss 50,000 bodies, or miss the lack of them. Like I said, I haven't been real comfortable with that whole thing, but what are you going to do? Gotta trust that it works out, ya know."

"And Lao knew about it too."

"Yeah, probably from being on the Whale, maybe even before. He had a long time to lose it over this."

"Might explain some of it."

"Yeah."

"Still, doesn't excuse it any of it. Honestly, your friend …!" She shut her mouth sharply, because she had resolved not to bring it up, ever. No point, but, ahhh, trash garbage jerkloserahhhhhh! Okay, okay, she was calm, she was cool. She turned her mind back to the point.

"So the computers were destroyed. But we're not dead."

"Nope. And we can't go back."

"Like I care. We're not dead."

"Obviously."

"Which means," she said, and her voice was rising with excitement, "which means we really are robots! Doug! We're real!"

"No, we aren't. That's sort of the whole point."

"No, we so absolutely are! Doug, this is awesome!"

Doug twisted away from her, and his voice was tinged with disgust. "Only a person as hyped on skells as you would say that like it's a good thing."

Alexa didn't care. "We are real, absolutely real, not just temporary. This is who we are! Doug! We're real!" She hopped up from the couch and started to pace in the darkness, cracking her shin almost instantly on Doug's coffee table. "Ow ow ow ow."

She heard Doug sigh and stretch. He hit the light panel, filling the room with gentle illumination. He always could fix the glare that she otherwise managed to trigger every time she touched it. She paced some more, her turn to try to figure things out through the tool of pointless movement. "Why isn't it a good thing? You know we never would've gotten off Earth if we stayed as humans. Most of the construction team was switched at the facility months before we took off. And there is no way we could have survived on Mira if we were still all squishy and weak."

"Not weak, Alexa. Real."

"I'm real, and, bonus!, I'm not weak. Hey, I just realized. I've only known you as Doug the Robot, not Doug the Human. Maybe we wouldn't be friends the other way." She stopped and looked at him.

"I am not Doug the Robot," he growled.

"No, that's right, you are not. You're Doug. Real Doug. However it happened, you're still real. Don't let theory get in the way of facts, Doug. Maybe we should all have been different by now, dead or squishy or I don't know, but fact is, here we are. Strong. On Mira. How cool is that?"

Doug closed his eyes and frowned, and she plopped next to him, grinning, a lot, and starting to shake, just a little. "You realize, as soon as I get over this high, I'm going to be scared to death. We need to talk about this, endlessly. Start to figure stuff out. This is either awesome or disastrous, but I'm going to go with awesome, since, you know, we're not actually dead."

"Yet."

"Yeah, that's what's going to terrify me next. So we need to talk. Tons."

"We're going to need pizza."

She beamed at him. "Dougie! You'd make a pretty good Outfitter. Always get all your tools ready before a big test session. Snacks are a key tool."

"I was thinking weapons and gear. Same difference, I guess." He sighed again, and pulled out his comm device. "I'll order pizza and maybe some beer. You make a list of stuff you're going to chatter about. Let's get this over with."

She leaned down and put a hand on his, before he could fire the device up. "It's going to be all right. We can figure this out. We won't lose." She looked at him earnestly.

He looked back, finally calm, before nodding and punching in the number for Army Pizza.

* * *

 **A/N: At a certain point, I decided that Doug deserves Alexa as a friend, somebody that he can get all unwrapped around, because he certainly tries so hard to keep it together. Trying not to think about stuff only works for so long. We all know that the Lifehold bugged him, and I can only wonder about his response to the final information (if it is ever released). Here's my take on it.**

 **Next up (possibly the last): An alternate version of post Ch. 12 life, pro-organic and shamelessly fluffy. I'm personally Camp No Return (*cough*mechon*cough*) but I will play in alternate pools if I can have fun.**


	7. Organic Redemption Fallout

**Organic Redemption Fallout, or, Outfitters and Harriers**

 **A/N: Complete trash and indulgent fluff involving Alexa, Doug and a plan to repopulate NLA after the organic redemption.**

 **Swears, beer, innuendo, why am I even bothering with warnings, just, be warned.**

 **I can barely bring myself to point out that the original good stuff belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT, and I can only hope they forgive me.**

* * *

Outfitters are known for their curiosity and willingness to try new things. Alexa was an Outfitter to end all Outfitters. Harriers are sworn to serve New LA in any way possible, no task too daunting. Doug was the oversized poster child for Harriers. And on Friday nights, they were neither of those things, just two friends ready to relax and think about nothing important in the least. No saving the world, no finding the solution. Their mutual mission was mindless, relaxing fun, in the form of the best and worst skell-related videos available.

Doug thumped onto his couch, two beers at the ready. Movie night à la Douglas was on, cheese popcorn, beer, fine viewing. Tonight: a documentary on … wait for it, waaaaaait for it … skells, from Sakuraba 0001 to the Ares 70. A bit outdated, but still a good video. Fun times were ahead, but clearly Alexa had something she would need to rant about first. He set her beer on the table, since she was focused elsewhere. He could wait.

"Oh crap, I don't want to have to deal with this!" Alexa was muttering at a text on her comm device. She waved the scrap of technology angrily at Doug. "You know the memos they've been sending out, to women? Nagging us to get on with the repopulation thing?"

Doug puffed out a breath, and concentrated on opening his beer.

"Well?"

No ignoring her. "Yeah, they've sent a note round to the guys too."

"Not the same. Because, honestly, you 'guys' are practically unnecessary."

He didn't argue the point. He knew exactly what she was talking about. Ever since the organic redemption had finally started, much delayed, the government of New LA had turned its sights on increasing the human population. Reviving the survivors from the Lifehold was all well and good, but those in charge also seemed determined to get some new citizens the old-fashioned way. Tiny citizens.

"They're promising babysitting and job security and time off and I don't care what. I just don't want to have the first thing to do with it."

"So don't. They can't make you, can they?" That thought made Doug anxious.

"No, I don't think so. But, jeez, are they ever spending a lot of time pointing out that it's our duty, blah blah blah." She'd pronounced it "doooooooooty".

Doug set down his beer bottle, turned to Alexa, and said, firmly, "You shouldn't do anything you don't want to. If you don't want a kid, you shouldn't and nobody should…"

Alexa waved his concern away. "Oh, it's not the kid that's the problem. I figure that's okay. Hell, I babysat for my brothers and they were TWINS! And my cousins and friends and the whole neighborhood when I could. I like them."

"So what's the problem?"

"Ugh. The whole getting the kid business. I do not want to be bothered."

Doug smiled slightly. "Hate to say this, but guys still can't get pregnant. Although I hear they're working on it."

"Fine, great, whatever, not the point. No, no, I meant the GETTING to getting the kid business."

"Oh." There followed a moment of silence while Alexa glared at her text and Doug sat there with a studiously blank expression. It would have been awkward except Alexa was still so angry and Doug was too busy thinking very very hard. He didn't come up with much. "Er… there's always artificial, er… that thing where…"

"Artificial insemination, Doug. Grow up. Yeah, I'm probably going to cave and go that way, eventually, but how am I going to stand it later?"

"I don't follow."

"Look. Either it's someone I know, and I just can't handle a dude looking at me like he's all something special or…"

"Honestly, Alexa, when have you ever noticed?"

"Don't interrupt. And for this, I'd notice. So either some guy is grinning like an idiot any time me and Junior wander past, or I don't even know word one about who the father is. Either way, it's like: 'What was my papi like, Mommy?' 'Sort of like a dixie cup, sweetie.' No."

"Little bit biased there, Alexa."

"Shut up. I told you, I'm going to cave, eventually. I just have to get past it, okay? Ugh, enough of that. Let's watch this movie."

They certainly watched the movie, but it was clear neither was taking much in. You want proof? No catcalls or cheers, and remarkably little drooling on Alexa's part, if any.

About half way through, Doug suddenly said, "I've been thinking, about what you said, about kids and stuff."

"Great. I don't care. I'm thinking about it enough as it is."

"You could try something else, um, if you wanted something different, um, …"

"What?" she asked sharply.

"I could be the dad," he blurted.

And another silence rested between the two.

"What?"

"You know, I could be the dad. However you wanted."

"However I wanted what?"

Doug closed his eyes and scrunched his face. Mistake on his part. He didn't see the narrowing of Alexa's eyes, the snarl growing on her face. "Er, the artificial insemination thing or, um, …"

Alexa stared at him in spitless amazement. "You're joking."

"Never mind. Just a suggestion."

"Nuh uh, you started this. Did I just catch you right? Did you just offer to impregnate me old school?"

"Dumb idea. Let's drop it."

"Oh you bet it's a dumb idea," she said, anger ringing in her voice even if she wasn't shouting. Yet. "Because surprisingly enough, I'm not suddenly glad to hear that you'd be all self-sacrificing for little old Alexa, dumb old Alexa, can't manage to figure out guys because she doesn't give a crap about that stuff Alexa…"

"I never said that," he argued, weakly.

But she ignored him and went on, building to a full-on rant. "You think you're the first? Well, you aren't, you idiot. You think dudes aren't trolling around, every time a memo goes out? I want to kill whoever thought this was a great idea. Gah, it is the worst. After the last time, three guys I thought were pretty cool hit me up. THREE! IN ONE WEEK! And all three mentioned that, gee, I might have a little trouble finding a partner, because, you know, I'm so lame but they'd see their way clear to …"

Doug looked at her in shock. "What? No! Alexa, no."

"… And I'm halfway to thinking that they have a little bit of a point, but hell no, they were jerks, making jerk moves in jerk ways, and I really don't like that you've gone and turned just as stupid as them …"

"Hey, I'd never…"

"…Because it sounded a lot like that to me and…"

"Alexa!" He'd grabbed her shoulders, then let go of them just as quickly. He bunched his hands in fists, steady on his knees, and looked down at them. "I didn't mean it like that. They're wrong, you know that. I'd never say something like that to you. I just want to do anything, if it could help. Whatever you think. Or nothing. I could just babysit, you know. Because your kid would be awesome." He gave a half-hearted shrug.

She blinked at the side of his face, noticed how hard he was blushing. No one else saw past all that jawline, no one else seemed to care when his ears went bright red. Doug blushed a lot sometimes, and being organic hadn't changed that. Alexa took a calming breath and tried again. Tried to consider it without her anger at certain nameless, uncool jerkfaces. Tried to pretend that Doug was the first, the only one, to mention it. "So. You're not being a creep."

He looked at her, a very sorry expression on his face. "Honest, Alexa. Swear to god. I was just trying to help."

"Semper helpful. That the Harrier motto or something?"

"Plus, I like kids," Doug said quietly.

She nodded. Yeah, she'd believe that.

"And I like you," he said, very quietly. And turned to look at the documentary with deep interest.

"Huh." Suddenly, she also found the documentary deeply fascinating. They both were rapt in their attention right through until the credits. And the extra bonus interviews. And the storyboard.

Eventually, there was nothing left besides the deleted scenes, and not even this extreme awkwardness could make those anything worth watching, ever. They were left with the ritual of tidying up Doug's living room, usually full of chat and plans, tonight dead silent except for a passing "excuse me" and "here you go".

"Well, thanks for the movie and everything," Alexa said, getting ready to go.

"Yeah. Look, sorry I said anything. Ignore it, okay? And I'm real sorry you have to put up with those jerks. You shouldn't have to. I could…"

"Oh no, do NOT offer to 'talk' to them. Just what I need, more drama."

"Yeah, sorry."

"So." Suddenly, she made a quick, calculated decision. Risky. But, heck, she was an Outfitter, ready to test any weird combo the clients threw at her. Sometimes stuff worked, even if it wasn't her thing. Knives, for example. Light skells. Any armor from Candid and Credible. Aaaand she was getting distracted. "You want to help."

"Alexa…"

"And you like kids."

He just nodded, eyes closed, waiting for her to leave. She stepped a little closer to him.

"And you like me." She paused. "Right. Let's try it out."

"What?!" His eyes were wide, and was he backing away just a little? Fool. He was done, he'd offered, she'd take his damn help.

"You. Me. Babies. Okay?"

It was pretty damn okay. Because Alexa was an Outfitter. Outfitters were known for their curiosity and willingness to try new things. Besides, she had a list she'd been keeping of every place she thought Doug was ticklish, just in case it would ever be useful. And Doug was a Harrier. Harriers were sworn to serve New LA in any way possible, no task too daunting. Besides, when all is said and done, Doug was pretty good at taking orders and very good at [post game spoiler]. And both of them were fine with long-term, meticulous missions.

Eleven months later, Doug started showing up around town, wearing a baby sling full of a dark haired infant with the most terrific and serious scowl. Everyone one was like, "Oh how cute, Doug's babysitting for Alexa again. Wonder who the father is." Until they registered her for daycare as Tiffany Barrett.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 **A/N: Ahhhhhhh! I totally cheated my way into this. TOTALLY. I'm personally convinced that the organic redemption is never going to happen (*cough* mechon *cough*). You can completely ignore this fluff's existence, pretend that it is some weird dream a Nopon had after too much dumpster diving. But, promise me, never! never watch the deleted scenes! They were deleted for a reason, kids!**

 **Thus ends the Doug and Alexa arc. If anything more shows up for them, I'll start a new batch. Next stuff to go up with either be more life among the NPCs, especially the OC NPC's of my imaginary Auxillary Skell Refuelling Station 1.**


End file.
